Ambivalence

May 26, 2008
Questioning his Jewish faith, his friends and his semitraditional family, Canadian playwright Garfinkel (The Trials of John Demjanjuk
) sets off on a stylized odyssey for meaning throughout contemporary Israel and Palestine. “It would be nice,” he writes, “to stumble upon a burning bush... even a neon sign that says 'This way to revelation, idiot.' ” What he does find—the story of a house near Jerusalem shared by an Arab and a Jew—challenges his Zionist school education and compels him to uncover the human, historical and political truths of the house and its occupants. His intent is to write a play possibly using this unusual living arrangement as a metaphor for peace. But along the way, as Garfinkel explores the West Bank, visits college buddies now Orthodox converts and tours the Qulandia refugee camp, his moral compass twirls, each adventure underscored by dramatized flashbacks of contradictory classroom lessons. Referring to thinkers like “new historian” Benny Morris and such cultural heroes as Ben-Gurion and Moses, Garfinkel creates a nuanced and engaging journey full of ethical inquiry and ethnic anxiety. Simply put, the Holy Land he experiences is not the land he studied. Readers looking for a grittier, more journalistic view of Jewish-Palestinian relations should look elsewhere; others, however, will empathize with his efforts to keep the faith.

May 15, 2008
Garfinkel, a Toronto-based poet and playwright, slowly unfolds a story that might make a good play. The narrative's pace mirrors the author's ambivalent mind. What is he ambivalent about? His religious schooling, his faith, his girlfriend Judith, and traveling to Israel. The story takes off when Garfinkel meets an exotic Palestinian woman named Rana at a Toronto movie theater. This friendship compels him to travel to Israel to find a house Rana had mentioned where Jews and Palestinians supposedly live together in harmony. The shift of time and place, sometimes within the same paragraph, makes for confusing reading, even when the author connects what he learned in synagogue school with the realities and dangers encountered in Israel. Dissonant phrases abound (e.g., "stale herring," "neat-freak God"). This work is more of a scrapbook (including a letter about global warming that his grandfather wrote to Boris Yeltsin in 1998) than a memoir. A spiritual journey best suited to libraries that collect works about Jewish-Arab relations.Elizabeth Connor, The Citadel, Military Coll. of South Carolina, Lib., Charleston

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2008
Raised in Toronto as a Conservative Jew, Garfinkel finds more perplexity than reassurance in his inherited faith, particularly after his progressive friends turn against Israel. But hope flickers when he hears about a house in Jerusalem where Palestinian and Jew live together amicably. So he leaves Canada to investigate this miraculous home. Besides, he needs fresh material for a commissioned play. However, when Garfinkel reaches Israel, events on the ground defy his lofty expectations and frustrate his playwriting instincts. Hardly a haven of amity, the Palestinian-Jewish home the author finally locates (after great difficulty) reflects rather than transcends the tensions running through a fractured land. Exceptionally broad empathies draw the author into probing conversations with a wide range of passionate voicesIsraeli and Palestinian, religious and secular, militant and pacifist. Often painful, these exchanges expose the plight of displaced Palestinians, the fears of anxious Israelis. Garfinkel offers no clear strategy for resolving the tensions. But readers may discern a glimmer of progress in the mere presence of a listening ear.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)